Category Archives: Rituals, festivals, holidays

Family steamboat

Nationality: Singaporean
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: 4/26/17
Primary Language: English
Language: Chinese

Background Information: Amanda is a Chinese Singaporean in her 2nd year of college, and she and her family grew up in Singapore. Her family, for various reasons, and as a result do not spend as much time with each other as in the past. As such, eating together — and cooking steamboat together, in particular, serves as an important ritual. I interviewed Amanda about this ritual.

Amanda: Once in a while my grandma will get all of us together and cook steamboat, which is basically cooking soup with a ton of ingredients like prawns and leafy vegetables and all that good stuff in the middle of the table on a tabletop stove, so it was a very involved process because we all had to sit there and wait for the soup to boil and then dish out our own meals, and steamboat dinners end up taking maybe 2, slightly more than 2 hours because we’re all talking while eating. We don’t do them very often, but it’s definitely become a special thing now where if I head home to Singapore after a long time, we’ll probably kind of celebrate it or commemorate it with a steamboat dinner, and it’d be a big thing if I invited someone, like a really good friend, to join us. I don’t even know how it really started, or when, because my grandma just did it one day as a very informal thing when before, we really only had steamboats anytime extended family came over, so like for Chinese New Year or a birthday or something like that, but yeah I like that it’s become an ‘our-family’ sort of thing, like the way we like to set everything up, arrange the table, what we talk about over our food, how our conversation topics transition, and how we’ll always end up sitting at the table at least half an hour after all the food’s gone, and usually it ends up being my dad occupied by the TV so he’ll be at the sofa, and it would be one of the few times my mum’s in a joking kind of mood, so the rest of us will just talk to her and share gossip from our lives and stuff.   

Thoughts: Again, it is very interesting to me how food traditions have many important social functions. Here, not only is the mere act of eating steamboat important, but also the performance of sitting together at a table and cooking it before eating it. This act is a means of bonding for Amanda’s family. Not only that, but it also seems to function as a sort of rite of passage for whoever Amanda invites to join her family It began with her grandmother, and seeing as it holds value for Amanda, it is a tradition that will be continued.

4/20

Nationality: American
Age: 23
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: 4/24/17
Primary Language: English

Background Information: Sharif is a Junior at college, and he grew up in California. He uses marijuana regularly, and I interviewed him about the supposed “weed day”—April 20th, and how he celebrates it.

Ankita: Have you always celebrated 4/20?

Sharif: Yeah, I usually like, since the 11th grade, when I like, tried marijuana for the first time, uh, I’ve been celebrating it, but I think it’s more of like uh… I think it’s just an excuse to be around like, your social group or your friends, and to share experiences with them and things like that. Yeah. It’s kind of like… it’s never really a fun day? Like, you just get high and sit there, you don’t do much hahaha, but like… I think that like… I dunno, I think this like self-proclaimed holiday is pretty fun.  Because like it’s like, for the people that do celebrate it, it’s like this common knowledge… it’s like this thing you share with the other people whoa re celebrating it. It’s like celebrating being lazy, which is kind of fun.

A: It’s kind of like a low-key thing, right? I’ve mostly seen it as internet culture?

S: Well I think it’s been around… for a long time. Like from the 60s maybe. Maybe. I’m not sure. I know there’s something called like, 7/10… Like July 10th is when like, people who like to smoke like concentrates? So basically like hash or something like that, they do it on 7/10, because backward, 7/10 means oil. And oil is what they call those things.

A: Most people I talk to though, have told me that they celebrate 4/20 kind of ironically? Like not really as a serious thing. Is that true for you as well, or no?

S: Well to be honest with you, at least with my friend group, it’s a pretty serious thing. I mean… well like, the years that I’ve spent it with my friends that I grew up with, they… take it seriously in the way where it’s like, they’ll buy like, massive amounts of weed and like do things where like, on one hand you’re trying to be cautious and not be smoking everyday and stuff, but that day is a day to just splurge on it? And do things that are kind of ridiculous, like rolling a huge joint that’s like the size of your arm or something. It’s the day to like, do the dumbest thing you can and like, spend money on it. Also now that it’s more accepted, most places where you can buy medical marijuana, have extreme like, deals on that day. So I remember like a week ago, I bought… they just had like, $20 for an eighth of an ounce of weed, which is like half off, because usually it’d be like $40. It’s kind of like the Black Friday of buying weed. There’s literally like, lines outside of the places where you go.

A: Is it different celebrating it now that you’re not really with the friends you started smoking with? Like your high school friends?

S: Um, well… it definitely was more fun when you’re in high school. Like this year I didn’t smoke weed until like, 11pm? Because I had to work all day. But when I was younger, I remember specifically like, one 4/20, we—it was literally from like, 10am till the night time that we like woke up, and started, and were like very very high. I mean it’s really great. Like, I can’t really stop smoking weed… because I have some like, really amazing relationships that wouldn’t be as amazing without it.

Thoughts: The most interesting thing to me about this special day is how it seems to be common knowledge, especially among college students, without it having been officialized in any way. Most of the content about 4/20 is derived from internet culture, mostly consisting of memes and jokes. While smoking weed is an everyday activity, it is interesting how the community here as a whole, in an underground way, dedicates one day to glorifiying it, and doing things they would not normally do.

Passover

Nationality: American
Occupation: Professor at USC
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: 4/25/17
Primary Language: English

Background Information: Julia Haft-Candell is a professor at USC, and she grew up in Oakland. Her family gets together every year to celebrate Passover, a Jewish occassion where people commemorate their liberation from slavery under the Egyptian people. I interviewed Julia about the origins of the day, as well as what her family does to celebrate it.

Julia: So, the Jews were slaves in Egypt, and… gosh, this is really hard, haha.

Ankita: Just like, whatever you remember about it is good.

Julia: So…the pharaoh… Like, the evil pharaoh. Not all the pharaohs were evil, but this one was, and he was worried about, I think kinda like, about the Jewish uprising, and the potential of Jewish men to like, overthrow their masters? So he ordered all Jewish sons born to be killed. And, a woman had a son, and couldn’t bring herself to do that, so she put him in a basket in the water, and flaoted him down the river, and the evil pharaoh’s like, daughter, or sister or something, found him, and raised him as a Prince of Egypt, even though he was Jewish. And, at some point like… and this is Moses, like this is the origin story of Moses… and at some point God said to him like, you are a chosen Jewish person, and he was like ‘woah’, and then like, God said like, you are gonna lead the Jews out of slavery, and I’m gonna show you how. And because he was in with the evil pharaoh and one of the Egyptians, basically, he was able to just like, talk to him and say like, ‘you should let us go because God is gonna get mad…’ and the pharaoh kept saying like, ‘ok I’ll let you go’, but then changing his mind… And then, eventually, God did the plagues? Like, the 10 plagues? So he ordered these plagues against the Egyptians as like a punishment for holding the Jews as slaves, so there are all these plagues like locusts, and blood… and all the cows died… and, I dunno, there were all these terrible afflictions. So the final plague was death of the first born? For Egyptians. So God told the Jews to rub lamb’s blood around their door, the night that the Angel of Death was gonna get the first borns and kill them… so the… Angel of Death ‘passed over’ the Jewish families, because they knew to put the lamb’s blood on the door. So that’s where the name comes from. And that’s when the pharaoh was finally like, ‘okay fine go’, because his son died… And then so, they gathered, like they had no time, so they just gathered everything, all their  belongings real quick, and left, like they didn’t even have time for the bread that they were baking to rise, so that’s what matzo is, this like, unleavened flat bread that we eat on Passover. And, um, Moses’ people, the Jewish people, went across the desert, and got to the Red Sea, and they were like, ‘oh crap, the sea’, and Moses was like, ‘don’t worry I got it’, and he parted it, and they all went through, and by then the pharaoh had changed his mind and sent soldiers, and they were chasing them, but when they were in the middle of the sea then the sea went back together and all the soldiers drowned, and so on… So that whole time is commemorated as Passover.

Ankita: So what do you guys do to celebrate it?

Julia: Okay so, you have a seder, like a seder plate, and it has, traditionally a lamb shank, to represent the blood on the doorway, there’s parsley, that you dip in salt water, to represent spring-time, and bitter herbs, and like, tears I think? And um, there’s this stuff called charoset, which is like apple, and nut, and like wine, like a mixture that you eat with the matzo, and it symbolizes the mortar between the bricks that the slaves would have to use to build the pyramids and stuff… And, there’s a hard-boiled egg to represent life I think, and there’s horseradish for like, bitterness… There’s also the Haggadah, kind of like this prayer book that you read through, and there’s a leader who reads through, and it tells the story of Passover, as well as prayers that you say before you… so there’s just a lot of like, reading and talking and singing, um, before you can eat. You can eat the parsley and you can eat the matzo, but you can’t eat the actual food till like, you’re done through the whole prayer book.

Ankita: Is the leader usually like a Rabbi or someone?

Julia: It’s usually just like, I mean traditionally it’s like the dad, or like the man of the house, you know, but that can of course, you know like I did it this year…In all of my family seders we’ve just kind of like, taken turns to be leaders.

Ankita: So there’s no rule like it has to be the oldest person or something?

Julia: No, but there is a rule for the youngest person in the seder. There are these four questions that the youngest participant has to ask — um, ‘why is this night different from all other nights’, ‘why do we eat this, instead of this’, and then we answer, and so on.

Thoughts: It was interesting to hear the unofficial way in which Julia told the origin story of Passover. To me, it shows how this story has been in her knowledge for a long time, as she seems deeply familiar with it, and is able to use her own words to explain it. I also enjoyed hearing about the various little traditions during the seder that are usually performed, and how there may be such variations from family to family.

Thanksgiving

Nationality: American
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: 4/26/17
Primary Language: English

Background Information: Clarise is a second-year student at USC, and she grew up in Wisconsin. I interviewed her about her family’s Thanksgiving traditions, as she celebrates it with them every year.

Ankita: So what do you guys usually do, or like eat at Thanksgiving dinners?

Clarise: Turkey, mashed potatoes, cranberries, gravy, corn, green beans… A lot of the usual Thanksgiving things.

Ankita: Do all families make like, similar things?

Clarise: Ya, I’d say similar things. I think certain families have their own like, familial traditions, like one of ours are these like mini cinnamon rolls? I dunno why, it has nothing to do with Thanksgiving, and we still make that. And we make pies, that’s a big Thanksgiving thing… My mom’s really into that, so.

Ankita: And who usually makes the food?

Clarise: Um, usually it’s just one aunt that cooks like, the main stuff, but then the other aunts and uncles that have like, specialty dishes, will bring those. So it’s kind of a collaborative effort.

Ankita: Have you ever helped make something?

Clarise: No, I’ve never helped…Actually, once, in the middle of summer, I was really craving Thanksgiving,  and I was like 13 years old, so I was like, ‘Dad! We have to go to the grocery store!’ So like I looked up recipes for all the things that you make at Thanksgiving, and I made a whole dinner by myself.

Ankita: Wow, and did you call your whole family over too?

Clarise: Yeah! Cus I wanted it to resemble what we had at Thanksgiving time. So yeah, I made a turkey.

Ankita: Does your family get together often?

Clarise: No, it’s mostly holidays. Or like, birthdays or special occassions. But it’s like, super rare that we all hang out, like just cuz. Because you know, we all have like our own schedules and stuff.

Ankita: And do you guys ever talk about like… the origins of Thanksgiving, or like, why it’s celebrated or anything?

Clarise: No. It’s never acknowledged. We just do it, because it’s… very American, haha.

Thoughts: Thanksgiving is such a widely celebrated holiday among Americans, so it is interesting to me how it has evolved from it’s origins to becoming simply a time when families can get together, and students can go home for a week, to make food and eat together. I also enjoyed Clarise’s story about constructing her own faux-Thanksgiving. While all the traditions were adhered to, and she even invited her whole family over, it still was not technically Thanksgiving, as the date was not right. This shows that the timing itself is significant for holidays and festivals or celebrations.

Ghost Month

Nationality: Singaporean
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: 4/21/17
Primary Language: English
Language: Chinese

Background Information: Ghost Month, or “Hungry Ghost Festival”, is something I have seen being celebrated among Chinese families in Singapore, around houses and apartment buildings. The majority of Singapore’s population lives in public housing units under the Housing Development Board (HDB), and it is primarily around these buildings that the rituals take place. I interviewed Amanda about this festival. Amanda is a Chinese Singaporean, and she and her family grew up in Singapore.

Ankita: Can you describe this festival for me a little?

Amanda: Um, it’s like a month starting in August… the whole month of August is considered Ghost Month, um for Chinese people, at least in Singapore. So there’s kind of like, a lot of superstition involved, because its considered the month where the gates to hell have been opened, and so ghosts from the… other world, I guess, flood our physical world. And so, if we have ancestors who are dead, which most of us do, haha, um then we need to like, burn things for them, because we believe that if we run things like joss paper like money, or like little paper houses or something, they will be able to receive it in the afterlife. Um, and we also leave food out for them. So this is like the kind of thing where you see shrines, or not really shrines, but like small little offerings by the side of the road or whatever, um, you’re not supposed to step on it because it’s the dead person’s property.

Ankita: Is it mostly in these like everyday urban spaces that you’d find them? Like sides of the roads?

Amanda: Mostly on the side of the road, on the outside of houses, like outside gates and stuff… like most people live in HDBs in Singapore, so mostly on the walkways leading up to the apartments and shit. And there’s like these specific burning kind of garbage bins, where people burn joss paper, so it ends up being smelly

Ankita: Is the burning itself a big thing? Like do people get together to do it or something?

Amanda: My family doesn’t do it, because my grandmother’s like, not that superstitious, and my grandfather just doesn’t give a shit. So we don’t do it, but I see a lot of Chinese families in HDBs do it. I don’t think they do it like as a big occasion, but like a couple nights a week someone in the family will go down and burn something. But. There’s also like, a lot of other superstitions, and I think because Chinese people form the majority in Singapore, and it’s such an invasive sort of ritual, haha, like really smelly and all that…that it ends up being like, everyone acknowledges or everyone in Singapore knows that it’s ghost month, so even though there’s no like banners or festivities or whatever, everyone knows that the moment it turns 1st of August, there are specific superstitions that you can choose to follow or not. Like, never stepping on these sorts of things. Or, actually you cannot go swimming, because apparently there’s going to be a ghost in the water… Never shower at night for the same reason… Never walk alone at night, or too late at night. Um, and… stupid things like that.

Ankita: Do you know of any differences in the practice, like, for people in Singapore as opposed to let’s say, Chinese people in China?

Amanda: I’m not totally sure, but I just know like, that is the time for families to take care of their dead. Probably Chinese people in Malaysia would do it differently too.

Thoughts: It is interesting how the rituals or customs of a particular culture can offer insight into the worldview of that particular community. For example, from Amanda’s description of Ghost Month, it becomes evident how death and the afterlife are a significant presence in this culture. A person, after death, does not cease to be a part of a family or the community as a whole, and festivals or superstitions exist to remind people about them and to be wary of them, or as Amanda said, to take care of them.